Stop Fighting Thermal Variance in Your Sidel SBO 20 Series 1
Ever notice your bottles coming out a bit… off? Maybe the walls are too thin in some spots, or the shape looks slightly warped. Most of the time, the culprit is something simple: mismatched IR lamps. When you throw lamps with different power outputs into the same oven, the preform doesn’t heat evenly. It’s a mess. We fixed this by building replacement lamps for the Sidel SBO 20 Series 1 that match the power 100%. No guesswork. Just a flat, consistent heat profile. The nitty-gritty on power matching Here’s the thing: thermal consistency comes down to the exact voltage and wattage of that quartz tube. If the ohms are even a little bit off, your heat density shifts. We build our lamps to hit the exact OEM wattage. Why does that matter? Because your PID controllers won’t have to fight “cold spots” caused by cheap, under-powered replacements. You just get a stable, reliable heat soak. It’s a relief. What’s actually inside We use high-purity quartz glass because it can take the hit of rapid heating and cooling without cracking. The shortwave IR emitter is designed to punch through the PET resin quickly. As for the fit, we use the standard industrial connectors—usually R7s or Sk15, depending on your setup. You just drop them in. No rewiring, no headaches. Plus, the coating on the tubes reflects the heat inward toward the preform. It’s way more efficient. But a quick heads-up: these lamps put out a lot of radiant heat. If your cooling fans are clogged with dust, you’re basically baking your reflectors. Keep those fans clean. Getting them running Installing these is a straight swap. Since the power match is 1:1, you usually don’t even need to mess with your heating profile. One pro tip: replace your lamps in full zones rather than doing them one by one. If you mix new and old, you’ll get “zebra striping” on your preforms. Swap the whole zone, keep your cycle times fast, and stop throwing scrap in the bin.